AUSTRIAN GP – Lando Norris fastest by a tenth and a half from Oscar Piastri in second practice
Lando Norris was fastest in second practice for the Austrian Grand Prix, the Englishman set a 04.580 to go just over a tenth and a half faster than teammate Oscar Piastri. It was a strong start to his weekend after the collision in Montreal with Piastri, and missing FP1 as he seeks to reassert himself as the favourite.
It was a perfect return as Norris got back on track, he has taken responsibility for the collision, which saw Piastri extend his championship lead.
Max Verstappen put his Red Bull third, but the Dutchman was over a tenth and a half behind. The Red Bull Ring often creates some of the closest lap times of the season, which makes qualifying even more unpredictable, as shown by Lance Stroll putting his Aston Martin fourth but was over a tenth off Verstappen, the last to be within a second of Norris.
Verstappen was without regular race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase for the weekend due to personal reasons, with Simon Rennie taking over.
- However, this was the first FP2 session in Spielberg for three years as it has recently been a sprint weekend. This meant several drivers sat out FP1, as well as McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari all have upgrades to their cars this weekend.
McLaren has a new front suspension shaping that is aimed at working with a new front wing that was first tested at the last race in Canada. Red Bull have a new floor edge. Ferrari has a completely redesigned new floor, their first upgrade since Bahrain in April.
Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari fifth, as he went over a tenth and a half behind Stroll and four hundredths ahead of George Russell, who had topped FP1. Russell who won this race a year ago and last time out in Montreal, was six and a half tenths off Norris, as the Mercedes driver went six hundredths ahead of Yuki Tsunoda.
However, Russell did his qualifying simulation earlier in the first half of the session which could explain some of the gap to Norris. But he said, “First practice was definitely a surprise to us. Second practice, we definitely didn’t have the pace like we did this morning in the quali runs. And the race pace was a step worse, so we need to analyse where that was.”
Gaberiel Bortoleto put his Sauber eighth, going half a tenth ahead of Fernando Alonso, while Lewis Hamilton completed the top ten. Kimi Antonelli missed out on the top ten by a quarter of a tenth as he went half a hundredth faster than Liam Lawson, the Racing Bulls driver’s session ending early
The race-simulation runs later in the session provided a complex picture, as the leading drivers chose different tyre compounds.
On the medium tyre, Antonelli, fastest on the list of headline lap times, appeared to have a slight edge over Norris and Leclerc. Verstappen was slightly quicker than Hamilton, both using the soft tyre, while Piastri did his long run on the hard tyre.
Lawson was just four thousandths faster than his teammate Isack Hajar who led the French trio with Pierre Gasly six hundredths off, the first driver to be over a second off Norris, and Esteban Ocon eight and a half hundredths further behind. Alex Albon was half a tenth ahead of Williams teammate Carlos Sainz.
Ollie Bearman was eighteenth, going eight hundredths ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who was a quarter of a second ahead of Franco Colapinto.